Is there a sense to start a new project called, I say, "Harry Photo Editor" or "PhotoWiz Editor"?I mean a competition to OpticsPro and others. See the project picture below. There are many advantages and one drawback as below.1. The drawback: The current price for all photo-editors is low. So the price of a new photo-editor should do not exceed the $199 limit, and it cannot be split into a few chap apps as the current PhotoWiz plugins and standalones.2. The asdvantages:2.1 The standalones of PhotoWiz-for-Windows can be started under Mac OS X via Wineskin. So, there will Not be need to create two (Windows and Mac) versions of "Harry Photo Editor" but just the Windows version that can be run on Mac computers under Wineskin. 2.2 Even OpticsPro, the one of the "holy trinity" (in common with Lightroom and CaptureOne) has no so powerful and delicate instruments as PhotoWiz instruments.2.3 PhotoWiz contains now all the instruments required in professional usage, including masking and others. Except of the selection tool and brushes (for yet). Therefore, the proposed "Harry Photo Editor" can be a good replacement of Photoshop/PaintShop for professionals.2.4. Due to the above reason, decreasing the common price for the new photo editor can be highly compensates by increasing numbers of sales.

P.S. I am not a programmer. So, I have no idea is possible to easy make switching the PhotoWiz apps under a common shell without closing the image under work. I also have no idea about other troubles that can be met, for example, on the way of creating a HQ sandalone raw engine (the first part of the proposed "Harry photo Editor"). But work with OpticsPro, then switching to Photoshop with PtoWiz on board turned me into this obvious idea: to make a competition to other photoeditors by joining PhotoWiz with a RAW developer into a standalone alternative to not only OpticsPro and others but also to Photoshop and Painshop for professionals.

Thanks four your suggestion. I have also been thinking about unifying the PhotoWiz products under one dialog. It is probably something that will be done with the next big update. However, rendering all PhotoWiz effects at the same time will probably be too slow, so each effect would have to be rendered to the full image, before you can switch to another module, e.g. from NoiseControl to ColorStyler.

However, turning PhotoWiz into a Photoshop-like or Lightroom-like image editor is a whole different thing. The PhotoWiz standalones already utilize the raw engine of MetaRaw, so that would be the least problem. But to compete with already existing tools it would mean that all effort has to go into the product and that developing other products would not be possible anymore. Additionally it would probably take 1-2 years of development to add the necessary functionality anyway.

As plugins for Photoshop Elements are the main sellers of The Plugin Site at the moment and as there are still new Photoshop Elements products in the pipeline, such a project seems unlikely at the moment. PhotoWiz will certainly evolve over time, but probably at a lower pace.

Harry

P.S: You can run the PhotoWiz LR versions directly from DxO Optics Pro and do not need to go via Photoshop.